By John Richardson THERE is a huge amount of excitement out there right now about booming internet sales and how this also boosting packaging demand and so sales of polymers such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene and polystyrene. China is, not surprisingly, the biggest growth market. Demand for foamed PE is, for example, booming in China […]
Asian Chemical Connections
China PP Market Outlook for H2 And 2018
By John Richardson AS IS the case with polyethylene (PE), China’s polypropylene (PP) market continues to catch up with the underlying realities of demand growth. If you recall, in Q1 of this year PP net imports (imports minus exports) grew by no less than 36% over the same period last year to 1.3m tonnes. The […]
China-led Global Downturn Could Again Happen In September
By John Richardson WHEN the Americans and the Europeans come back from their summer holidays in September it seems quite possible that they will see history repeat itself. It was of course from September 2014 onwards that commodities prices started to decline from their all-time record highs, largely because of a belated understand that credit […]
Failed Pursuit Of Inflation Creates Major Economic Risks
By John Richardson BUILDING UP lots of debt isn’t a problem if it leads to inflation that then inflates-away the value of some of that lending. And debt-induced healthy increases in inflation also show that all of that lending has worked, as these levels of inflation point to snug employment markets and strong wage growth. […]
China: Real Story On Lending Says Slowdown Still On The Way
By John Richardson THERE was a lot of unhelpful and distracting noise surrounding the release of China’s official year-on-year H1 GDP growth that came in at an unexpectedly strong 6.9%. Equally misleading was the pick-up in June total social financing (TSF). This was taken as an indication that China is backing away from its efforts […]
US Economy Returns To Weak Growth On Demographics
By John Richardson THE US is a deeply politically divided country to the point where the divisions are having a profound effect on consumer confidence. As the New York Times writes: Among Republicans, the University of Michigan consumer expectations index was at 61.1 in October, the kind of reading typically reported in the depths of a […]
US Economic Rescue Fails On Missing Human Factor
By John Richardson THE US Federal Reserve thought it understood how the world worked, thanks to its FRB/US (Ferbus) computer model. “Assuming that the FRB/US model does a good job of capturing the macroeconomic implications of declining house prices, such an event does not pose a particularly difficult challenge for monetary policy,” John Williams, then […]
US Economy: More Of The Same Will Not Work…
By John Richardson US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen’s solution for the failed monetary stimulus policies of the last seven years? More of the same, which is a further signal to investors desperate for yield that they have little choice but to spend even more money on risky assets. Don’t blame the investors, by […]
Emerging Markets: 67.7 More Years To Catch Up With US
By John Richardson IF I had a dollar in my pocket for every time I had read or heard the phrase “the rise of the middle classes in the emerging markets” in the context that this was a tremendous opportunity for the global economy, I would be pretty rich by now. And I would be […]
Sitting On The Fence Involves Choosing Failure
By John Richardson IF you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. So the choice today is yours. If you remain on the fence, still unsure about whether the end of the Supercycle is real or not, you will be no different to those who say that the fundamentals that govern the chemicals industry haven’t changed. […]
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